Andrée was born in 1856 in Paris and lived in the Rue du Rocher. She started working as a model, and became notable as she appeared in important impressionist paintings. She became an actress in the Naturalist style of theatre, in which the purpose was to give a near perfect view of real scenes and not to rely on the audience's imagination. She acted for several decades, appearing in plays and comedies such as those by Sacha Guitry and Georges Courteline, but it was the brief period in the 1870s, when she was a model for artists, most importantly Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, that made her name.[4] In 1878 she was the model for Rolla, a painting by Henri Gervex, that was based on a poem by Alfred de Musset.[3] The main character in the film Amélie is compared to Renoir's depiction of Andree in his painting Luncheon of the Boating Party.
Andree was a collector of images and autographs.[5]
Bibliography
Jean Sutherland Boggs: Degas. Ausstellungskatalog Paris, Ottawa, New York, Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris 1988, ISBN2-7118-2146-3.
John Collins: Ellen Andrée in Berk Jiminez: Dictionary of Artists' Models. Fitzroy Dearborn, Chicago 2001, ISBN1-57958-233-8.
Bernard Denvir: The chronicle of Impressionism. Thames and Hudson, London 1993, ISBN0-500-23665-8.
Benoît Noël, Jean Hournon: Parisiana : la capitale des peintres au XIXe siècle. Presses Franciliennes, Paris 2006, ISBN2-9527214-0-8.
Theodore Reff: Manet and modern Paris. National Gallery of Art, Washington und University of Chicago Press, Chicago und London 1982, ISBN0-226-70720-2.
Maryanne Stevens, Colin B. Bailey, Stephane Guegan: Manet, portraying life, Ausstellungskatalog Toledo Museum of Art und Royal Academy of Arts 2012–13, Royal Academy of Arts, London 2012, ISBN978-1-907533-52-5.
Terry W. Strieter: Nineteenth-century European art. Aldwych Press, London 1999, ISBN0-86172-115-2.
Adolphe Tabarant: Manet et ses oeuvres. Gallimard, Paris 1947.
References
^Fiche de naissance n° 5/32. Archives en ligne de la Ville de Paris, état-civil du 3ème arrondissement (ancien), fichier des naissances de 1856.